Pokémon! Who doesn’t love discussing these games just a bit too much? Getting just a tad too obsessive in rating and ranking these games against each other even though they don’t care about us at all anymore? In my experience, certainly not Pokémon fans — this shit is at least 50% of their whole personality! And in our pursuit of catching ‘em all (rankings, page clicks) we here at Hard Drive have decided to throw our balls (hat) into the ring and share our rankings of every Pokémon generation.
Now, when choosing what goes where — a heavy emphasis is placed on the “main series” Pokémon games that kicked the generation off; a slightly less heavy but still existent emphasis is placed on any main series remakes or sequels and an emphasis approximately the weight of a Joltik (1.3 lbs, I am a real fan) is placed on spinoffs or other matters of relevance that came out in that generation’s heyday.
Excluding the still ongoing Generation 9, here’s every generation of Pokémon ranked — because we love polite and reasonable discussion.
#8 — Generation 7
Our bottom 2 entries on this list are pretty much interchangeable, but if you like either of them you’re a big stupid fucking idiot. Many people will decry the next entry as worse than Generation 7 and in a technical, “does the game function” sense, that is definitely true. But — and maybe this is down to my personal bias, I just think Pokémon Sun & Moon are absolutely wretched. Railroady, linear slogfests that go beyond being “kids games” and instead just become outright insulting to your intelligence.
Pokémon Sun & Moon are what you get if you give the time and budget for a Pokémon game to the people who make McDonald’s toys. It’s a guided island tour of anime Hawaii where your tour guide is a phone that never shuts the fuck up and subtly pressures you out of ever exploring on your own by sticking an obnoxious red flag on the bottom of your screen, telling you exactly where you should be going at all times. Independent thought is overrated!
Generation 7 is further hurt by having no remakes, and by the fact that Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon add the least new features and iron out the least flaws of any follow-up, the most limp and lifeless a “definitive edition” has ever felt. Sorry, SwSh haters. Those games might be built with paperclips and silly string, but this one is actually designed worse. Get in the bag Nebby, then fucking stay there.
#7 — Generation 8
Probably the most widely-hated Pokémon games because they’re the most obviously bad. Scarlet & Violet just a few years later would somehow be even more broken than these ones, but they had the benefit of an open world and some actually, occasionally fun and exciting exploration. The closest Sword & Shield ever came to giving you freedom is the Wild Area, which, in terms of pure gameplay, is pretty neat!
But oh my god it is more broken than a Ron DeSantis Twitter space. The weather changes radically with every 20 yards you travel, as though you were cycling through the Bermuda Triangle or the opening 30 minutes of the Wizard Of Oz and the pop-in? Bro, even Teddiursa’s trying to jumpscare you in this game and it’s made so shoddily that sometimes it fucking works.
This is without mentioning “Dexit,” the controversy that exploded once it became clear that not every previously existing Pokémon would appear in these games for the first time in series’ history. Game Freak offered up a bunch of pseudo-explanations as to why but it was clear with all the reused animations that The Pokémon Company had tapped their foot, told them to get this game out by late 2019 and they just didn’t have time to make something of real quality.
I give Sword & Shield the slight nod over Sun & Moon because their fundamental design makes me a bit less angry, but as someone actually from the UK it will always make me a bit sad that the games based on my home country will seemingly forever be the ones considered the worst. But as someone from there, we definitely deserve it.
#6 —Generation 6
We’re out of the realm of outright bad Pokémon games now and into the land of the well-and-truly mid. If there were an award for most forgettable Pokémon games, X & Y would not get the award, because we would forget to give it to them.
What do I, a Pokémon aficionado, remember about them? Well, I certainly remember that this was when Pokémon’s nostalgia-baiting was at its most obnoxious. When they elected to literally just give you a Kanto starter as well as your original Gen 6 starter about 2 hours into the game. When they gave Blastoise and Venusaur mega forms and gave Charizard 2 because Charizard is the best and coolest ever and is definitely stronger than YOUR Dad.
Mega forms were pretty cool! But woefully ditched in the generations to follow, in favor of lesser and cheesier generational battle “gimmicks,” a trend that these games started.
And on the subject of trends started by X & Y, in my opinion the absolute worst one has to be the new EXP. Share. I understand wanting to circumvent grinding but there are more elegant solutions than having all your guys at Level 50 before you even make it to the 4th gym and watching gormlessly as your rippled, muscular Pangoro tears out the jugular of a poor Happiny in front of traumatized Youngster Susan. Hey, at least these games gave you the option to turn it off so you could choose to make the game a bit too grindy or way too easy for you! Neat!
#5 — Generation 1
“Gen 1 best one!” wheezes your creaking skull, dust poofing out of the sockets where your eyes used to be. You can hardly even move to stand up and defend your biased nostalgia, can you? You are a relic of the past, and the only reason Gen 1 is your favorite is because it’s the first one you played or you simply refuse to engage with anything else.
You decided that the Red Power Ranger was your favorite after watching 2 episodes and then never watched another. Fried chicken is amongst your favorite foods, you love drinking coffee, or maybe tap water. Your name is John, or Chloe, or David, or Katie. And if any of these things are true, you are legally obligated to post a screenshot of this to Twitter.com so that we can repost it for engagement.
So tell me, John/Chloe/David/Katie — do you love Wrap, Bind, Clamp or Fire Spin preventing you from doing quite literally anything for 2-5 turns at random? Hmm? Do you love the speed stat determining the accuracy of OHKO moves? Do you love a glitch that causes Focus Energy to reduce your critical hit by 75% rate instead of doubling it?
Hmm, I bet you do. And I bet you love having to save every time you use a box as well. I bet you loved the ludicrous brokenness of Psychic types and the Special stat, I bet you love looking at monochromatic worlds of 2 or 3 colors on-screen at most. That’s because you belong in the past, much like Generation 1 of Pokémon does. It was great at the time, but it’s over now, okay? Let it go. Close your eyes, and look at the rabbits.
#4 — Generation 2
Pokémon Gold & Silver are the games I grew up with and some of the games I have the strongest nostalgic attachment to. Playing these games with my brother when we were kids are some of the only memories I have of getting along with him, and some of the fondest memories of my life. I truly adore these games, I think their world design is immaculate — constantly looping back on itself and encouraging exploration to an even greater extent than Red & Blue. The crossroads around Ecruteak City, Violet City and the Ruins of Alph, Dark Cave exiting just below Blackthorn City, where the 8th gym is — which itself loops back to Cherrygrove City, a location from even before the 1st gym! These games bestow upon players both young and old a profound sense of discovery that I would honestly go as far as to call Metroidesque.
This all being said, holy shit! What were they cooking? 7th Gym Leader Pryce’s strongest ‘Mon is a Lv. 34 Piloswine??? Get out there and grind some more, pussy! These games are so open and non-linear that the devs have no idea what to do with the difficulty and level curve and so it’s totally out of whack. Some battles like Gym Leaders 5-7 are made stupidly easy because of how much the game opens up around then, but some other battles like Gym Leaders 3-4 and the 2nd/3rd Rival Battles just feel way harder than they should be! Far be it from me to let my bias get in the way of my judgment — these may be among my favorite games ever but I can not deny their very real balancing issues, both casually and competitively. A moment of silence for every comp player who faced down Gen 2 Snorlax.
Then again, they just put the whole of Kanto in the post-game and so it has the most nostalgically satisfying and content-rich post-game of any game at the time? Like it just turns it into this huge amazing victory lap that’s like double the size of what you thought it would be?? I dunno, maybe it is the best. I’m gonna eat some Cheetos, blast National Park and cry for a bit.
#3 — Generation 5
I’ll be honest, I don’t love Black & White or Black & White 2 as much as most people do. I find that the plot which is so often praised for its maturity and complexity actually boils down to 20 hours of a bunch of really obviously evil dudes and one baked-out-of-his-mind twink going “is it wrong to capture and battle Pokémon”? and then at the end going “no.” I also think this generation has the largest collection of hideously ugly “we’ll put that right up on the fridge” Pokémon designs of any generation by far, and the thick black outlines around the (admittedly impressive) moving sprites make me wanna hurl. Who was responsible for Sigilyph? Did AI Art come early?
But I’d be remiss not to mention that that’s likely because Generation 5 and Black & White introduced the most new Pokémon of any generation ever at a staggeringly impressive 156. And that speaks to the stunning breadth of content these games offer up; they really tried with the story this time, the post-game content is huge and it made some very concerted attempts to offer up real challenges and a really meaty experience to the player.
I don’t think it gets talked about enough how these games started Pokémon’s linear downward spiral, discouraging world exploration and railroading you across a straight line more than any previous games, but that’s the only truly cutting criticism I think I can hit them with. I haven’t talked much about the third editions like “Pokémon Yellow” or “Pokémon Crystal” yet because I don’t think they changed or added quite enough to stretch out this article’s word count, but Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 — the first sequels we’d ever seen in main series Pokémon are truly impressive, beefy, with all the lumps and bumps in the right places.
#2 — Generation 3
Truly, we are in GOAT territory now. The years when Pokémon was at its peak. It was a pretty tough call between this and #1, and I feel like you could swap them around with very little complaints. Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire just had so much fucking soul in them, man. They’re over 20 years old and they still look good today thanks to some of the most gorgeous pixel art the GBA could handle. You can see your reflection in the puddles in these games! Without looking it up to fact check this statement, Scarlet & Violet couldn’t even do that! (They probably could actually do that.)
But then you’ve got Pokémon Emerald, this hung-like-a-horse beast of a game that takes the beautiful tropical setting, takes the pounding brass soundtrack and the beckoning open ocean and just expands on it all, man. Emerald for my money, is the single 2nd-best Pokémon game ever aside from New Pokémon Snap an entry we’ll be getting to very soon.
In the height of the popularity of Takeshi’s Castle and a wacky American game show I never saw, Game Freak looked at Gen 2’s post-game, said “hold our weird-flavored KitKats” and birthed the Battle Frontier from their glorious, still-quivering brain pussies. A slew of zany, incredibly fun battle challenges with wild stipulations and tense endgame boss battles that could keep you playing for literal years. It doesn’t age, it doesn’t get old. It’s called Emerald, but it might as well be evergreen.
Oh, yeah. The spinoffs went crazy. Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon XD: Gale Of Darkness, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red & Blue Rescue Team, hell, throw Pokémon Channel in there, I don’t give a shit! That Slowpoke weather channel was hype as fuck! If this gen had too much water for you, it was because you hate swimming. And if you didn’t like swimming, then you can fuck right off.
(Disclaimer: There is probably actually too much water in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. Like 50% of the Pokedex feels like Water types and you Surf/Dive a LOT in these games. It is, in fact, a somewhat fair criticism.)
#1 — Generation 4
Pokémon Diamond & Pearl are great, the last truly non-linear Pokémon games until Gen 9. They’re a bit glacially paced at times, though and I don’t quite think they top Ruby & Sapphire. Pokémon Platinum is an awesome iteration, speeding the game up, offering tons more ‘Mons in the base game (including mercifully, some fuckin’ Fire types) and giving us an awesome, Battle Frontier-adjacent post-game with tons of content. Still, though, I think it just falls slightly short of Pokémon Emerald. But when you consider the whole breadth of what this generation brought us? Bro. Yeah, I even think it tops Gen 3.
I’ll get this out of the way. I have not cried in a long time. I think I am no longer capable of crying. Just a few weeks ago I downloaded Bumble again to see if it was still possible. It is not.
Pokémon Heart Gold & Soul Silver from 2009 may have been the last thing to make me cry. They are remakes on a level of perfection we have seldom seen since barring the likes of Capcom. They don’t fix all of Gen 2’s problems (namely the level curve) but they fix most of them (such as that amazing new Safari Zone that lets you catch Murkrow, Grimer etc. in the base game.) The remixed music? Incredible. You should’ve seen 13-year-old-me the first time that National Park remix kicked in, it was like Chris Crocker had just watched Britney Spears get set upon by a fucking wildebeest.
DPP & HGSS all also benefit from the physical/special split, an elegant change to Pokémon’s fundamental battle mechanics that made the Special stat, types and moves all far more intuitive and balanced out a lot of previously overtuned ‘Mons. I’d put this addition slightly above Gen 3’s excellent addition of Abilities in the same way I’d put HGSS slightly above Gen 3’s brilliant remakes of Red & Blue in the form of Pokémon Fire Red & Leaf Green.
And then? We have the spinoffs. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers Of Time, Darkness & Sky, were peak Pokémon fiction, somehow even better than the Mystery Dungeon games that preceded them, Pokémon Ranger: Shadows Of Almia is a very slept-on sequel that ramped up everything its predecessor did and made use of the DS’s unique gimmicks to the fullest extent, Pokémon Battle Revolution was mid as fuck but Sableye does a really funny walk when you hit him so I had to mention it here, Pokémon was just firing on all cylinders in the years from 2000-2010. I totally get if you wanna put Gen 3 or even Gen 5 up on your pedestal, but as a Gold/Silver fanboy who has a lot of appreciation for DPP too, I fly the flag for the mid-late 2000s as Pokémon’s golden years. They’re…heart golden…No, fuck it, that’s the list.
